“Bruce was administrating film and film people when he was here, and now he’ll be administering films and film students,” Conley said. “So I don’t think there’s going to be a world of difference between one position and the other.”
Jenkins cited his longtime experience with the film community of the Midwest as one factor in his decision to go to the SAIC.
“I’m familiar with Chicago, having been a grad student at Northwestern in the mid-to-late ’70s,” he said. “I used to literally leave class and go down to [the SAIC] and play hooky.”
Jenkins said he was unable to comment on his time at Harvard or the circumstances of his departure.
FINDING A CURATOR
In September, VES will debut an undergraduate concentration option in film studies, and the University’s film scholars are readying themselves for a potential graduate program in the field.
As this critical semester for the study of cinema approaches, Assistant Professor of English and of VES J.D. Connor ’92 said the search for a new archive curator was “progressing nicely,” with the hope of filling the position by the summer.
Germanic Languages and Literatures Department Chair Eric Rentschler, who has played a key role in the recent development of Harvard’s film studies program, said the “harmonious” five-person search committee had already seen one candidate for interviews and tours and expected to see two more in the near future.
Connor, a Crimson editor, said the committee faced a lack of suitable candidates for the position.
“It’s not a big pool that we’re drawing from,” he said.
Connor said the committee included him, Rentschler, VES Chair and Kenan Professor of English Marjorie Garber, Visiting Lecturer in VES Ross McElwee and Suit Librarian of the Fine Arts Library Katharine Martinez, who has controlled the archive since it was removed from Jenkins’ leadership in February.
Hooker Professor of the Visual Arts Alfred Guzzetti, a filmmaker and longtime VES professor who resigned from his position on Harvard’s informal committee on film studies earlier in the semester in protest of the move, said he had declined to serve on the curatorial search committee for similar reasons.
“Having been so upset at the way Bruce was muscled out, it was clear that I would not be a helpful addition to the search committee,” Guzzetti said. “[The archive transfer] was an administrative move made with the near-certain consciousness that it would make a difficult situation for the incumbent and would risk provoking the incumbent’s resignation, which it did.”
At the time, the move drew criticism from scholars who said it was made unilaterally and without sufficient concern for the unique needs and functions of the film collection.
—Staff writer Simon W. Vozick-Levinson can be reached at vozick@fas.harvard.edu.